Harshness of the Seasons
by Terapsina
Summary: AU To those who know the story of the making of vampires Elena will be remembered as the girl who was sacrificed for the plague they became. But in Elijah's memory she will always be the wife he loved and lost to his parents' desperation. All that he now has left is the wane hope that the body Ayanna preserved will one day wake as she promised. Elejah
1. Death of Summer

Disclaimer: The world in this story and the characters within it are not now nor ever have they ever been mine. But then… you already knew that.

A/N: I wanted to explore a world where Elena was the Original Petrova and to see if I could make it into Elejah without damaging the connection I love about them. Whether I succeeded or not of course is not up to me to judge.

*o0O0o*

*Harshness of the Seasons*

*Death of Summer*

*o0O0o*

Elena's hand fleetingly slides through Elijah's hair until clenching and pulls him towards her with more direct intent than before this had begun only a moon ago he ever expected of her. And as she starts to kiss him until he loses the air in his chest, he considers only letting it happen and to forget why he brought her to their clearing in the first place. But he needs to know why she returns his attention while ignoring that of his brother's as well as those of the rest of the unmarried men who follow every move this beautiful maiden makes.

She has lived through seventeen summers while he already passed his twenty eighth. There are younger men who would no doubt offer her as much, if not more than him, and yet it is not their arms she seeks.

So as they part for breath, his tightly coiled body heaving against hers he doesn't restrain the question any longer.

"Why me? You could choose to spend your time with any village man here."

She looks at him with her gentle gaze and runs her palm over the side of his face with a care that he has never seen her gift any other. She leans closer with her flushed cheeks and bites her lip, for a moment he thinks she will kiss him instead of answering. But then Elena sends towards him a look of confounded disbelief as if she couldn't quite believe his uncertainty, as though the answer should be as clear as the sky is above them right now.

"Don't you know?"

Elijah does not reply, waiting for her to say what until now has only ever been implied. She takes a step back, crossing her arms and transfixing him with the barest of smiles. The answer is everything he ever wished to read from her always inviting mouth.

"Because _you_ Elijah are the one who did not try to steal kisses when I did not wish to give them away. Because you talk with me about every thought your mind contains, engage me in conversation interested in my answers instead of trying to impress me with your swordplay, hunting prowess or handsome face. Because Elijah, you are not like anyone else here. If I spend the rest of my life by your side and in your embrace I will never regret a sunset. I _love_ you Elijah, it is so very, very simple."

She is like an apparition from another world, almost supernatural in her graceful beauty. Her dark eyes pull at his soul, her brown hair fall in waves free across her shoulders masking her curves. And the look in her gaze is more vulnerable than ever before, she is offering her heart and the bravery he suddenly sees in her almost blinds him to the fear and vulnerability it protects. But he does see those too and he can only continue in one way.

"My Elena, I love you as well!"

She jumps forward with her arms enveloping his shoulders and a laugh filled to the brim with relief greeting his ears. When after a moment far too short she finally releases him there is a spark of mischief in her grin.

"That's good I suppose, it will make asking for my hand easier I believe then!"

*o0O0o*

Elena's hair for the final time fall free across her shoulders and in slight waves down her back, a crown of blue flowers is accenting her beauty adding a touch of fey playfulness and innocence to her look. A part of him knows he will miss seeing her this way outside in the sunlight, but he smiles secretly at the knowledge that the moonlight within the walls of their home will still illuminate her brown waves in his presence alone.

She answers his smile with an unrestrained of her own, showing genuine happiness as she takes the warrior's sword Finn passes her. It was smelted by his older brother only a moon ago as the gift for his dead wife's sister.

He wishes Elena's own blood could have done this for her, but he feels content at being the man who will create a new family with her.

The blade gleams in the sun and she nervously bites her rosy lip while removing the ring from its hilt. He can see Elena's hands shaking as she reaches for his own and even more as she gives him the sword before she slides the ring on his finger. He knows she gives her oath to him next, but the wording escapes him, too lost he is in her rich brown eyes and the harmonious sound in which her promise is voiced.

Her dark embers assure him with so much more clarity than could ever be spelled in mere words.

Elena possesses no magic he knows, but right then, when their lives become one he does not quite believe this. She has certainly enchanted all his senses, all they feel, all they ever feel it seems, is her alone.

Marriage is not about love of course, not always or even often. But he counts himself blessed as the man who gets both within the arms of the same woman.

And then as these thoughts overwhelm him he gives her his ancestor's sword for the son they will have if the gods are kind, their hands touch clasping the hilt as one when he loosens the oath ring from its place and moves it towards its rightful destination on her hand.

Elena is his wife now. Joy, peace, wonder, relief and love all fight to be felt over each other. His heart has never before been so filled.

Suddenly Elijah know that although he is not a violent man and does not carry his fathers rage he swears that the Gods will need to have mercy on anyone trying to separate him from Elena now, for he certainly will show no such empathy.

*o0O0o*

As he enters his home, his back aching from hours of crouching still, in wait of the animals that would become their meal and his shoulder stinging from the short struggle that followed a deer's appearance, Elijah wishes for nothing more than to take his wife in his arms and express the overpowering energy that always remains after a stressful hunt.

But then he looks up to see her and stops in his steps. Elena is wearing her best dress, - woven by his mother in the stead of her own, - her hair is braided more carefully than he knows she can manage by herself and there is a look in her eyes he has never seen in them before.

It is knowing and sweet. It expresses wonder and a touch of wisdom that her eyes however bold have never before contained to such a degree. His mother has had it. A lot of mothers he's seen have worn it with pride.

She stands silent in front of him, her lips fighting to keep at bay a smile and her hand placed on her belly so lightly he doesn't know if she even feels it through the material covering her skin.

He does not need for her to speak. With a sudden strike of clearness Elijah _knows _what Elena planned to reveal this night.

And he can see how Elena has come to the same conclusion by the way she runs into his arms, by the release of the laughter that lightens the room. But she comments anyway, as if she needs to say it out loud.

"Elijah, you're going to be a father. We're going to be parents."

He would be a _father_. There was a life growing in her body, a life they had between them created together, a life who would adore them unconditionally, without reservation.

His son or daughter!

He had thought he knew love before this, he'd been wrong. What he shared with Elena until now had been a spring flower's first bloom, what he would feel for her from this day on is a forest in the middle of summer.

The kiss that follows is both frantic and calm, like an uncontrollable storm nearing from the east. It's as if the winds pick up speed and grow violent, and yet carry in their breath that sense of silence that can not be observed in any other moment nature gifts them with because all other life in the fields and forests around them would stop, waiting between heartbeats for what follows.

Except this is something wonderful. A storm takes life away from the soil beneath a man's feet, right now he has just learned that a new life approaches.

_*_o0O0o_*_

Elijah loves his family, more than anything and because of that right now it feels like a part of him has been shredded and torn unrecognizable. It's been only hours since he saw Henrik lying still and pale on the unmerciful ground. The boy who used to follow their father's every move with admiration was suddenly nothing more than a dead carcass, - not unlike the one's of the creatures he's killed himself, - with its blood dripping to the grey sand until its color transformed into the ugly brown he hoped to forget.

And despite his wishes, still all Elijah can hear is the terrible sobs of Rebekah and that one single, raw scream that erupted from his mother's throat as she dropped the basket. All he can remember is the rapidly building rage on his father's face as he stood before them with his back rigid and unmoving. And finally, the guilty eyes of Niklaus, as they begged for forgiveness from anyone bothering to look.

Henrik had looked so small, he who was always bigger than his young age would think to show. Always brave, always smart, always happy and freely willing to get into trouble. And this time tragically, the boy who without fail was always so very fascinated by their neighbors' continuous change into rabid beasts.

His mind is so assaulted by pictures, which will be the source for his nightmares for as long as he'll live, he doesn't at first notice the arrival of another. But then he feels someone sitting down beside him, smells the bare scent of apple cider, lavender and honey sent to him by a slight breeze of wind, and Elijah remembers he isn't alone.

Elena doesn't say anything and he knows that this once her words wouldn't change a thing, _nothing_ could relieve this agony, not even the love of his wife.

But then he is again reminded of how Elena always surprises him when she moves his hand and places a bundle of cloth in his arms. The little form he now cradles moves and he finally opens his clenched eyes, they are instantly captured by the small blue orbs of the babe he holds, he can already see signs of them one day turning dark brown.

In almost every way this young boy is his mother's child.

And so for a fateful minute he lets himself forget after all, allows his mind to only think about the moment he first held his own son. He was so small back then, his skin so pink it almost looked bloody despite the bath Ayanna had just given him. He remembers the sweaty exhausted form of Elena, and the blinding smile she sent him as he placed Godric in the safety of her hold.

And despite the blackness of his brother's death, despite the oncoming war he knows his father is planning, he can't help but smile.

"Thank you!"

He looks away from Godric and towards Elena, notices the red around her eyes and the sadness stark in every smooth line of her face. She had loved Henrik as well, he knows. She had introduced him to their son, she had once tidied a wound caused by a sword he wasn't supposed to touch and so couldn't go to mother about. His youngest brother had even, at a time when he was just as enamored of her beauty as the other boys, brought her flowers. And Elijah knows he can't just surround himself in stone walls, he needs to take care of the family he still has instead of drowning himself in the grief of what is already lost.

So he grabs Elena by her shoulder and carefully brings her into his arms as well, their own child alive and breathing between them. And when he cries she does not silence him, does not take his mind off of the loss, she cries with him.

*o0O0o*

When he wakes on the wooden floor of his childhood home all he feels at first is confusion. There is a mist over his memories, but whatever the haze is hiding is important, it's something frightening. He feels terrified and as if his heart was breaking, but he cannot think why and this makes it even more terrible.

"_I'm sorry Elijah!"_

He slowly stands dizzily looking around, trying to locate his mother's voice. But he is alone, or he thinks so until noticing another body unconscious on the ground. He drops on his knees in front of his only older sibling.

Finn has blood on his shirt and a hole in the material, but as Elijah moves the clothing away the skin underneath is untouched. He almost sighs in relief, but it's at that moment that he finally remembers who placed them there.

"_Drink my son!"_

"_I'm sorry Elijah! She was the only option."_

"_Nothing will harm us now."_

"_I cannot find Elena mother, she said you asked to meet her?"_

He remembers the aftertaste of copper in the mead he drank. He remembers as his father drove a sword through his heart. He remembers the sorrowful eyes of his mother as she averted her gaze at his questions and he recalls her exhausted, slightly shaking limbs that he could recognize as overuse of magic.

He wants to wait and make sure his brother is alright, but he knows he needs to find Elena first.

His mother felt the need to apologize and he does not wish to consider why he is sure it had very little to do with his father's killing blow. There is a growing hunger in his stomach, but it is overshadowed by the seeping unrest of the unanswered questions, a building fear of the thought that he has lost Elena… that he will never see her again.

*o0O0o*

When he set out to find his wife he didn't know how he would accomplish this, it was the middle of the night and she could be anywhere in the village or even somewhere lost in the forest. But the moment he had left the room he had laid dead in, not even minutes ago, he had caught her scent.

It was as alluring as always, though even more so now. Where before he could only gather the impression of it, now it was like it encompassed him completely, there were traces of it on his skin from her touch but the wind brought him a more powerful wisp of it.

It was mixed in with ash.

The trace leads him to a clearing, their clearing. A moon shines above him, but the moment he steps out of the tree line his gaze does not waiver from what greets him.

Elena is lying in the middle of a burned out circle as if asleep. Her dress is scorched and dirty, her hair fall messily out of her braid and there is a cut across her upturned wrist extended as an offering to some unknown creature. Her skin is so white it's almost translucent, it's as if there is no blood within Elena to add blush to her face.

She looks dead.

And as he drops on his knees by her side, - a memory of having recently done this very same motion before another body, flashing behind his eyelids - as he takes note of her unmoving chest and her glazed over eyes, - that are now horrible not beautiful - he knows. She _is_ dead.

Some part of him feared this the moment his mother apologized seeking forgiveness, or even before that, when he first started looking for her with growing worry. But to be confronted with it is like hitting the ground after a great fall.

Elena was his life, or at least the very best parts of it. And now she couldn't be because she no longer breathes, no longer bleeds, no longer _is_.

Someone had brought her here, to the place many of their best moments had transpired in and killed her. If the signs of magic he notices are right, then someone had sacrificed Elena to the spirits his mother prays for. And however much he wishes he could deny this, Elijah knows that the woman who gave him life had been the one to take Elena's away.

And his mother had changed him. He can feel it, this unnatural hunger he has never before experienced, the heightened senses that had allowed him to track Elena to this place of death. And yet the transformation seems incomplete, jagged edges within him are somehow looking to complete themselves, angling for some purpose to the surface seeking out the final piece.

His eyes, of their own accord, leave her pained unseeing gaze and once more travel to her wrist. Blood is smeared across her white skin, dry and empty of the life it should contain. But suddenly, despite his repulsion he wants to bite into it and draw out _more_.

It's not like she needs it anymore.

Before he can draw back with sickness or give in to this new need, a branch snaps behind him.

He is no longer alone.

"It is not her blood you need Elijah, son of Mikael."

There stands Ayanna, her usually open eyes dark with some unnamed emotion. She who he has always looked on as yet another member of his family, a sister to his mother holds no kindness in her soul for him anymore.

Remembering the turn of his thoughts he knows he can not blame her for this, he loves Elena and yet he had almost stolen the essence from her veins. What kind of demon has he become?

"What _happened_ here?"

Elijah almost snarls this at the witch, but is held back by the new instinct professing the danger of that move. He's afraid he already knows the answer to his inquiry, but he needs to hear it, needs the whole grotesque tale so he can understand. He needs to _know_.

The witch, - because right now that's all that she is, - laughs at him without humor. There is scorn in her gaze, a look of someone conversing with their enemy.

"A foolish mistake, many will pay for it, you and your family maybe most of all. Your father wanted you invincible, so he got his wish. May he regret it, always!"

It wasn't an answer, but he can tell she isn't done, that before the sun rises she will tell him much more. He decides to direct her to the point quickly.

"But, Elena?"

His voice breaks on her name when he looks at his wife's face and he clenches his eyes closed, a sensation of vertigo overtakes him, but he fights off the disorientation and opens them again, this time looking straight ahead.

"Esther needed a sacrifice. Someone without parents who was a mother, someone with a pure heart and linked to the ones her death would protect. Do you know anyone better suited?"

Sacrificial magic, black arts! Elijah knows the basics around its cost, his mother had warned him and his siblings more than once away from the folly of their use.

"_You must always give up something as precious to yourself as what you wish to gain,"_ she would say. This time Esther has given up her son to gain protection for her children.

For he does not think he could ever forgive this.

There is really only one more thing to know, the most important one.

"Can you bring her back?"

He silently begs for whoever is listening for this one miracle. He is willing to give up his own life to bring hers back.

"No!" Elijah does not flinch under her denial however. Ayanna's eyes hold something back from him, before she continues he can see a dark smile slowly rising to the surface. "But you can… if I give you the means."

"What do you want?"

Instead of answering she seems to change the conversation entirely.

"Niklaus is not your brother you know. He is the seed of a savage… and as your mother knows, nature can not permit indestructibility, so as she changed you and your family she bound the part of him that was the Moon's as well."

Despite the influx of new questions he keeps silent, listening. He can not afford to interrupt the witch now, he can contemplate Niklaus's heritage at a time his Elena's life does not hang in balance.

"The curse she placed on him is vulnerable. There is a weakness she thinks she has avoided, but her bastard's future heads towards an abomination even more destructive than the one she created in you. I want a promise from you, Elijah! I want your word you will do _everything _in your power to stop Niklaus from breaking his curse."

"And you will tell me how to bring Elena back to me?"

"I will give you the means so you can find the solution yourself... eventually."

Frustrated Elijah almost refuses her offer, but common sense tells him to hold his tongue.

She is corralling him towards a trap like a masterful spider, he can see it, but she also isn't lying.

"Fine, I give you my word my brother will not break Esther's curse, now tell me how to get Elena back."

Triumph colors her face. As does relief, he swallows at noticing this other emotion, Ayanna had been afraid he would refuse her.

What could his brother possibly be heading for to frighten her so?

"I will preserve her body as it is now, her soul has not yet left this world so I shall tether it to the shell and it will sleep for however long it takes for you to find your answer."

"Do it then!"

"Yes, but first we must make sure you live long enough to keep your end of this bargain."

And before Elijah can say anything else Ayanna pulls out a blade and cuts a red line across her palm.

For the next minute all that matters to him is just one more gulp of Valhalla.

*o0O0o*

A/N2: So I think I'm happy with this. I wasn't easy writing Elena in a way that kept her in character, but placed her a thousand years before her time with a different if similar background. Just so you know the next chapter is in my mind, but not yet on paper.

All I'm telling you is that although Elena is definitely dead for almost the entire following story, there will be more Elejah, because our favorite Original will lose himself in memories once in a while.

And by the way I have to thank 'standinginthewayofcontroll' from the tumblr community for the name of Elijah and Elena's son.

What did you think? Do review so I know, receiving them is like eating ice-cream without the unfortunate weight gain.


	2. Grieving Autumn: Eye of the Storm

Disclaimer: I do not own the TV Show this fic is based on, or the characters within it. I don't get anything from writing this except some personal satisfaction and if the other fans feel generous, reviews.

A/N: So writing this has become somewhat of a pleasure for me. I must have gone through it fifty times by now adding and subtracting stuff, correcting the mistakes I could see and yet _enjoying_ it. That's a first for me, so I hope this means you like reading this as much as I loved writing it.

*o0O0o*

*Harshness of the Seasons*

*Grieving Autumn: Eye of the Storm*

*o0O0o*

There were two reasons, years apart, for why Elena had become what she was… will always be to him.

It's the second one, with her cold palm lying slack in his, he reflects on now. There is still that unreasonable hope that if only he doesn't let go, doesn't blink away from her face, she will wake up. That she'll open her eyes, smile up at him and reach out to remove a strand of hair from his brow, running her thumb over it like she's done a hundred mornings before.

But even as the sun dawns, slowly traveling over the treetops that surround them and up her torn dress to their joined fingers, even as he flinches away from the sudden onslaught of pain and the smell of burning flesh, she never once reacts.

Not even as he grabs her into his arms and, with a speed he's never before been capable of, runs towards home all the while gritting his jaw to smother the agony.

And he would suddenly do anything to have power over time, so he could take himself back to the day he looked at her and for the first time _saw_. Maybe he could stop her from what came after, maybe she would still be alive now if she never grew to love him.

-*o0o*-

_Elijah, to rid his spear of the blood from the boar he had impaled it on in his most recent hunt, was cleaning it in the solitude of the place he preferred for its tranquil silence. The ancient oak he was sitting under shielded him from the sun that was pleasantly warm in the clearing he currently resided in, but rarely broke through to the ground of the massive forest around him._

_Except this time, he needed to fight off the sensation of being subtly watched._

_Carefully, keeping his activity monotonous, he surreptitiously watched the field around him for any out of place movements or sounds. Nothing seemed to be wrong and yet the feeling persisted._

_Just as he was ready to dismiss his wakened alertness as the delayed reaction to the hunt, the branch above him creaked under some unknown weight._

_Elijah rapidly sprung to his feet, removing himself from the vulnerable position under the hidden threat, and clenched his palm on the spear in readiness to defend himself. And yet what greeted him weren't the unmerciful eyes of a human wolf but the amused laughter of a young woman._

_He relaxed, waiting for the mirthful girl to show herself. It did not take long until the person, he soon recognized as Finn's ward, expertly dropped to the ground with a proud smile._

"_I expected you to notice me sooner Elijah. Are you sure you should be a hunter?"_

_Her teasing remark caught him slightly off guard, so he didn't take the time to think through his words as he usually would have._

"_I almost killed you Elena. Must you always startle me when I'm holding a weapon?"_

_He regretted this oversight as soon as he spoke once Elena's eyes flashed with an old pain he more than understood the reason for. And he himself, a moment too late, remembered the day this woman had lost everything important to her. He chose to divert her wandering mind with a change of subject._

"_What are you doing here?"_

_Elena inclined her head in gratitude at this and rolled her eyes in a sudden exasperation that ignited his curiosity._

"_I'm hiding from your brother."_

_He lifted his eyebrow at this, as far as he knew Elena got along with Finn well enough. And after seeing some of the interactions between her and her guardian, he even carried the feeling that by this point Finn saw her as his own daughter._

"_Finn? Why would you want to do so?"_

_But then, before Elena could have time to respond, he reminded himself that this same father's love might be reason enough for a woman with seventeen summers behind her. _

"_No, I meant Niklaus. He is under the mistaken impression that I enjoy his advances."_

_This was truly news to him. Elijah had not known Niklaus carried affection for anyone, let alone Finn's ward. He thought of maybe leaving to learn more from the source, but this new found information, for some reason, suddenly prompted Elijah to look at Elena in a way he until now hadn't thought of._

_For four years, she had been the unlucky child of a fate's whim. The young girl, who survived tragedy only to then face the loss of everything dear to her._

_She had grown in the four years since her family's death, matured, in a way that was not entirely physical. Her form had changed of course, her face lost the fullness of childhood and her body grown into that of a beautiful woman's, but it was more than that. Her eyes were less naïve but somehow more kind and she held herself with a certain poise that told him of the sureness, and strength, of her character. He could certainly see why Niklaus would find her a desirable bride._

_Concerned with the direction his thoughts were taking he chose to lighten the surroundings that were suddenly charged with an almost solid energy which, by the way Elena was suddenly looking at him in curious interest, even she noticed._

"_I would tell him to leave you be, but I'm afraid that would only encourage him."_

_His brother could be stubborn and as Elijah was well aware, - especially intent on the things out of his reach. If only to his own mind, Elijah had to sadly admit, most notable of those were their father's acceptance and their mother's affection._

"_Probably."_

_Elena agreed ruefully and Elijah quickly concluded that if she could reach the same conclusion as him, she knew Niklaus at least a little. Maybe his brother did have a slight chance to gain Elena's favor. Yet unexpectedly, this possibility somehow brought on an unwelcome unrest he'd never before experienced and could not name._

-*o0o*-_  
_

That day marked the beginning of their story, it was this shared moment that revealed the first strands of the natural connection binding him to Elena. But now he will also remember this as the day that made them take the very first steps towards the journey that has led to her death.

*o0O0o*

As Godric sweetly looks up at Elijah, - his tiny fingers stretching out for his father's face and his own young one, with the determined intent to reach his set goal plain to be seen, scrunched up adorably in concentration, - the ripping pain in his chest somewhat eases.

But it also, sadly, simultaneously grows. For he _recognizes_ that expression, that stubborn will to never surrender to hardship, and where the day before it would have made him smile, today it is a reminder of what has been torn from his arms by the person he had always been certain he'd be able to trust, without fail, forever.

His son has inherited Elena's spirit.

He understands Godric should be too young for Elijah to be able to claim this so firmly, but it is a truth he can feel on levels not supernatural, but also not grounded in earth.

It's similar to the feeling that told him his heart would always belong to Elena. He _knows_ this to be fact, even now. Undeniable like the sense, at the back of his mind, had hounded him to find Elena after she went to meet his mother only the evening before.

Ignoring the darker urge demanding he turn away from his child's seeking hold he leans forward, giving Godric access to play with the nose that has seemingly fascinated him. And although he does not smile, the rigid lines of his face relax and his rapid breathing calms at the innocent touch.

Elijah knows that if he closes his eyes and buries himself in the scent of his son, he can pretend that nothing has changed since yesterday. Elena would be just outside, gathering water or berries, or kindling for their hearth. And when returning she'd find them like this, secretly smile at him and think him unaware of her gesture. He wouldn't tell her that when she joins his surroundings his eyes _always_ find her, as if he could feel the comfort of her presence even if she makes not a sound.

But his useless dip into the lake of imagined is harshly interrupted by the knock at his door. His real world crashes back into place, shattering the beating drum within his chest once again.

And while he gently, carefully places Godric back into his warm crib a raw rage begins to coil under his ribs, contained _only_ by his unwillingness to frighten his son. He swallows the urge to unleash all the simmering agony of his grief onto everyone he could reach, make them bleed as he is bleeding and then make them scream as he wished to at the sight of her cut wrists. Instead, unsteady and shaking with effort, he leans forward to the only piece of Elena still breathing and kisses their sons dark hair.

Elijah is across the room and opening his doors seconds after, ready to unleash his fury on the person responsible for his loss. He wants to rip Esther apart till she's nothing but blood and flesh, the hungry monster seeking to appease the man's broken heart.

But it is not Esther waiting on the other side, nor is it his father who must be just as guilty of this betrayal if not more so. Although he should have prepared for _this_ guest, he had not been. Only now, confronted with the face he grew up along with, does he remember there is one other man who would weep by his wife's grave.

"Finn?"

He grasps the edge of the open door, cracking it under his too tight hold, while he seeks for some nonexistent words that could possibly express his unending sorrow.

"Elijah!" Finn inclines his head, seemingly acknowledging Elijah's odd reaction at his presence, "Mother wishes to see all of us to explain… what has been done. So I came to gather you and Elena to meet her."

Realization, along with horror dawns, his mother has not confessed her gravest sin. Finn does not yet know who their parents have sacrificed without regret. Their mother has lacked courage to admit, to Finn, who is the one they have bled for their children's protection. And this means he must reveal the tragedy he shall never accept himself.

"I cannot."

His voice loses sound at the words as he stares into his brother's oblivious eyes. How can Elijah continue, when even that much barely traverses his lips?

"Why?"

So he chooses not to speak. Instead he grabs Finn by his arm and drags him into his home, to confront him with the body he has been mourning over for hours now. He knows the exact moment in time that Finn sees her, for he feels the man, who was almost a father to her, shudder against his palm. He lets go and observes as Finn rushes forward, crouches by Elena's side, and reaches for her face, but just like Godric was unable to touch him minutes ago neither can his brother connect with her skin. Unlike Elijah, who breached the space for the sake of his son, the daughter of Finn's heart does not respond.

It is this that prompts him to answer his brother's forgotten question.

"Because she is dead."

He's aware his words were unnecessary. By the presence of the heaving breaths of his usually calm brother Elijah knows he has already concluded this cruel truth, but the words have already escaped him.

It is as he observes his brother falling apart that something in Elijah dangerously quiets. The raging emotions, he was slaving under until now, do not disappear, he doubts they ever will now, but it's as if they are now circling around him in the way of hungry predators. He just needs to flinch under their sharp gaze and they will pounce at once, but while he stands still, unwilling to move, they just watch in wait for a sign of his weakness.

It is a hollow sensation, but it leaves his mind clear of the overwhelming noise and able to think… to plan.

"What happened to her?"

The question sounds angrier than Elijah has ever heard coming from this sibling, he has always seen Finn as the most steady of them, the one least likely to abandon his position of peace. He is the one who resolves any strife between Rebekah and Kol and the one who always tries to pull Niklaus back from the brink of a foolish or dangerous idea.

But now Finn is nothing except a father with a dead daughter and a rage without direction, seeking it.

So Elijah, battling back his scruples, mercilessly guides him to a target. Because he will need an ally, and in any case he is telling no lies with his next line.

"Mother needed a sacrifice. Elena fit the requirements of the spell that has been cast on us, apparently nothing else but our survival mattered. Not even Elena."

He knows he should understand the reasons of the woman who birthed him. She had only wanted to protect them from the same fate as the one that befell Henrik, but Elena was his wife, the mother of his son and the girl Finn raised as his own. She was family as well, and no explanation could ever suffice.

But he pushes all this out of his mind as he sees the table he has dined at every night crashing against a wall and hears the responding wails of Godric. He sends a glare towards Finn and goes to pick up the squirming, scared bundle of the babe that, until now, had happily been ignoring them.

It almost feels normal to soothe the cries of the child he loves more every passing moment.

He starts to hum the lullaby he's heard Elena sing to Godric before and closes his eyes, holding back the threat of the painful emotions that are crashing against him like waves against the dam in the middle of a storm. But he can still, even over the cries of his child, hear it as his brother starts pacing across his room.

He hears more than that, hears the blood rushing through Finn with a steady thrum responding to his beating heart. He can hear his brother's chest expanding for air and the little hiss he lets out when he exhales. He doesn't need to look at him to be able to guess exactly where he stands, exactly how far from him.

It's as if he suddenly observes Finn as an enemy despite the opposite being far truer.

Not too long later Godric calms down, Finn says nothing in the time it takes, but as the quiet begins to linger Elijah knows that more questions are brewing. So instead of waiting for one, he reveals the single thing he knows will gain him Finn's support in whatever awaits him.

"I will get Elena back."

Finn stops, staring at him in incomprehension. Elijah connects their gazes, willing his brother to believe him, hoping his own face looks more assured of this than he is himself.

"How? She is dead. Gone."

He grimaces, still not quite alright with hearing those words in connection to Elena, but squares his shoulders and explains himself.

"Asleep. Ayanna cast a spell on her last night, it will preserve her body so time does not ravage it. I just need to find a way to wake her up."

"Are you certain of this Elijah? Completely sure?"

He can see Finn starting to hope in the same way he has since the witch gave her word. And he wished he could respond with a 'yes', but although he has decided to use Finn's love for his wife in his quest to save her, he cannot lie.

He will betray his honor only as far as it takes, but no further.

"No. But does that at all matter?"

Finn doesn't respond. He doesn't really need to, after all Elijah knows that they share the way they look at this. Elena is important to them both and so a mere possibility is _all_ that's required for them to do anything within their power, to seek out a way, to save her.

Elijah chooses not to admit to what 'anything' requires of him.

But there must be something Finn has guessed, for he walks towards Elijah and grabs him firmly by his neck, holding him in place, as he looks him squarely in the eye. This is a position he remembers well, he could never forget the last time Finn placed him in this grip.

"What have you bargained with?"

He wishes to look away but does not, like he did not before. Although in this case Elijah refuses to respond at all. Finn does not need to know about the high price of Elena's life, only he should carry the burden of the secret which will require of him to deceive Niklaus.

And as he readies to change the subject, he tries and fails to not recall the time last spring, when Finn placed him in this same firm grip and asked him a question with only one correct answer. He can still hear the earnest promise he made that day, the one he now has failed to upkeep.

"So brother, shall we go meet mother and let her explain _this_?"

The memory begins to blossom within his mind and he unwillingly shudders under the rabid gazes of the predators.

-*o0o*-

"_I have taken care of Elena since you brought her to me, wounded and unconscious, and with the news of my wife's death besides. I watched her grow and soothed her nightmares. I taught her how to use a bow and how to wrap a wound. So Elijah, I will give you my blessing to your love for her, despite the secret you and her have kept from me. But you must promise me, you will protect her in my place now. You will not let any harm come to her."_

_His brother's arm was tightly, on the edge of painful, clamped against the back of his neck. Finn's eyes were serious and unwavering, waiting for his answer as if Elijah's life depended on the one he gave._

_Their brother's bond had always been strong, but this once it would mean nothing, for Elijah knew Finn found Elena to be far more precious. And he did not condemn it, for Elena deserved all the devotion in the world._

"_Elena is fully capable of protecting herself, we both know this."_

_Finn's intense glare did not waiver, clearly waiting for more. So Elijah uttered a vow he had no intention of breaking._

"_But if she ever faces something beyond even her, you have my word Finn, I will stand in the way of the monster wishing her harm."_

*o0O0o*

A/N2: So what did you think? Did you like how I wrote Finn? Turns out he's harder than he looks, especially the human him who hasn't yet faced all that would someday turn him a bit suicidal. Also don't you think I chose the perfect brother for Elena to share a bond similar to the one canon has between her and Alaric?

Alright the next chapter is the last one placed in this time, after that there's going to be a time jump. Did you enjoy the flashbacks? I'm personally rather proud of the first one.


	3. Grieving Autumn: Heavy Rainfall

Disclaimer: The show and the characters do not belong to me and never will (not even in an AU universe). What _does_ belong to me is this particular string of words, but I'm not making money from it so please don't sue me.

A/N: I'm sorry I made you wait so long, but it turns out that including the right amount of emotion in a scene that requires much of it… isn't easy. I hope I didn't entirely fail. Also here you'll see more of Esther, Klaus and Kol.

*o0O0o*

*Harshness of the Seasons*

*Grieving Autumn: Heavy Rainfall*

*o0O0o*

Her open hand reaches for his shoulder in comfort. It is as smooth and as warm as he remembers it being, but at her touch it feels as if black tendrils of some subtle poison are joining his blood through the skin of his shoulder, with its false sympathy slithering lower towards his chest and then _deeper_, finally reaching his grieving heart.

Those are the same hands that used to soothe a boy into sleep despite the horrific sounds of the howling wolves and the damp cold of the caves they sheltered in. But right then Elijah has to fight a darker urge, one he has never before experienced and never wished to. He has never struck his mother, or any woman, but that same extended hand carried a blade that slit open Elena's wrist and so, for a single fraction of a moment, he imagines grabbing it and _grinding._

The delicate bones would twist until the wrist snapped. And maybe she could feel a raindrop of what Elena had gone through.

What irony that his mother has taught him to be a better man than that.

Instead of acting the monster Esther has made him he responds in a way that seems to injure her far more and for that he refuses to feel empathy.

"Do not touch me! You have lost that right."

He slowly, intently takes a step out of the reach of her arms. And though he still finds no joy from the duress in her usually cool, blue eyes they do not move him either. All he can see is the clotted blood she has washed from her hands, all he can hear is the frightened questions Elena must have whispered and the lies his mother would have spilled to bring his wife to that clearing, to be slaughtered as something no more significant than an ant.

"Elijah, you must understand. I did not wish this, if there had been any other way to protect you all from them, but Henrik proved that…"

"There was! You should have let us stay as we were, we could have left here. The wolves would never have followed us, this was their home before it became ours, and they would have remained to protect it not chased after us as bloodhounds. The only reason you and father chose this path was _pride_."

His mother could invoke Henrik's name all she wished, it did not absolve her of her act. It did not command his forgiveness. It only dragged his esteem of her further down to be trampled on by the horses she and Niklaus loved so much.

"My son…"

That one word breaks the hold on his restraint far more than any she had spoken before. Elijah might have come from her loins, he might have been her son for his whole life and loved her without question since birth, but his mother, the woman who raised him and taught him about the importance of family, would never have bled her son's wife for magic and revenge.

The woman who was his mother is gone, has joined the spirits of their ancestors more permanently than he will allow Elena to remain. So he will not answer to a title she no longer has a right to breathe out. Not of him.

"Use my name Esther."

His voice is harsh and certain, final. He can see her waver in its face, but Esther, the sorceress and the healer, has never been weak and it does not surprise him when even this does not break her. Instead she opens her mouth to reply, but Elijah has something to say to her yet and interrupts her empty platitudes.

"Family above all! Was that not what you would say to us when we quarreled between ourselves? To take care of each other, because we were all that any of us truly had? But Elena was our family as well, she might not have been your daughter, but Finn raised her for _years_ as his own and she gave birth to your grandson, _my son_. You gave her advice when Godric was ill and she sat by his cradle all through the night, as we waited for you to finish the poultice to lower his fever. My _mother_ would not have sacrificed her to the Gods."

Esther stays silent at his words, her face gradually hardening into stone while she listens. Her back straightens and for the first time, behind the façade of the woman who had once sung lullabies to her children, he saw the powerful witch with the will of iron who could frighten their neighbors into peace.

If only she would have kept that goal.

"It had to be done Elijah. Elena's life for all of yours was the only option and if you hate me from now until you meet Odin, to join her and your two brothers in Asgard? It will be worth it, because that day will not come on the morrow now. Not for you, nor your father, nor your brothers or sister. I would rather live with your eternal scorn than hold yet another cold son in my arms."

Her eyes finally leave him and he follows them to the silently watchful siblings he had forgotten about in his blinding anger at this woman he wishes he could hate as completely as he used to love her. But family runs deeper than just blood and hatred is not all consuming even now.

His family is watching them silent and frozen. For _them_ he feels his heart rise in his throat and his face softens at their torn expressions. They did not ask for this change or its price any more than he did. They have all lost much with this declaration of war their parents have put forth as well. All of them are looking from their mother to him in…

…all except for Niklaus. His rash brother is not in the room at all. Sometime after Elijah's arrival he has fled.

*o0O0o*

When Elijah finds him Niklaus is lying on the ground between the broken, scattered limbs of the forest trees and fiercely staring up at the glittering stars. His no longer boyish face is almost entirely hooded in shadows, hiding his expression from the practiced eye of an elder sibling. Only his irises shine from the light of the moon. They are dry however, although by the chaotic scene in front of him Elijah easily concludes that rage and not apathy is responsible.

Thrown branches, fallen pines and even a dead doe with its guts painting the earth black beneath it are what greet him. It is like a conjuration of a nightmare. A frigid chill suddenly rains upon him to with its chill foresight command his attention. Elijah stills, for a moment the possibilities of what they are and what is yet to become of them horrifies him.

Closing his eyes, he tries to forget the fear in the lines of Ayanna's face when she traded Elena's life for his word. This is Niklaus, the boy who loved waking up to watch the sun at its dawn while Rebekah and Kol complained it too early, 'because he thought it beautiful. This is the young man who enjoys riding, and sparring and showing their sister how to wield a blade despite father's rigid protests. And whoever's son he might be, he will _always_ remain Elijah's brother.

'_Like Esther was supposed to forever be mother?'_

The thought coldens him like icy water dripping down an unclothed back, but before he can ponder upon the foreboding and the uncertain further, Niklaus speaks.

"I am sorry Elijah."

The walls in him wither, for the few moments it had taken to fear the witch's prediction he had not been thinking of Elena. His brother's condolences however are the cold wave crashing over a swaying ship, only the barest of grips are keeping Elijah afloat and out of reach of the hissing sea monster waiting for him if he stops and thinks about the white skin, the clean line of a precisely made cut, the blank eyes, all of it the immortalized agony of her last moments. His own pain does not promise a soon end.

Elena had kissed him only two mornings ago. Her eyes had glinted as she teased him, her lips had curled invitingly into a coy smile and her head had tilted in victory once he pulled her against him. She had been there every night for what feels like a lifetime now. Her new absence _cuts_. And he can only guess at the time it will take to experience that sheer, overwhelming happiness once again.

Elijah's answer when it finally comes is a faint, tired whisper. Niklaus should not have been able to hear it, but their new nature has played with their ears as well and so he does.

"I know."

He receives back a look of mute hesitation. Elijah knows that face, has seen it countless times when his siblings have something to tell that they are not quite ready to admit but feel they must. So despite his own ripped apart chest he sits down beside his little brother, waiting for him to let out whatever it is that had made him attack their surroundings with this much uncontained aggression.

It only takes a moment.

"I did love her Elijah!_ I_ _did!_ But… not like you do, I did not want to admit to that when I first learned of your intent to take her as your wife of course, because you already had our mother and father's affection, why should you have been more deserving of Elena's as well? If I loved her more, then she would love me as well. That was the way it had to work, is it not correct? The truth is though… I did not want to give her up, except I never really had her did I? She was always all yours."

Elijah does not know how to respond. Does he lie? Does he say Elena could have chosen him to ease the suffering he now sees?

He supposes he could…

…but the problem is that Niklaus is_ almost _correct. The flaw in his thinking is what could not have ever gained Elena's favor. His brother never understood the way Elena was built, he did not comprehend their lives in that unique way of hers. Even Elijah struggled to, he lacked the level of compassion Elena stood by with her unyielding conviction, but he_ understood. _He strived.

Elena was as much her own as she was his. And in a different sense she was Finn's as well. Elena loved more than just her husband, she loved the family she lost, the father she gained and their son above all else. The one thing, the most significant thing, that Elijah knows made it impossible for her to give Niklaus what he desired, was his brother's inability to but for a moment imagine sharing her, not even with the people with whom jealousy should not have been an issue.

Niklaus was capable of love, but Elijah had long since noticed how the loneliness in his heart made him too selfish to give it without any clauses. Elijah prays for the day his brother finds a woman who might heal that wound.

Thoughts of his brother's past infatuation with Elena wakes a long forgotten thought and despite himself, he laughs in amusement of the realization. His voice cracks, it almost sounds as if he is crying instead and yet he can't keep this memory to himself.

"Did you know that all the sons of our father have been taken with my wife? Finn thinks of her as a daughter. There's you and me. And remember how Henrik brought her flowers every morning for a moon until father put a stop to it? Even Kol…"

Niklaus finally looks towards him with the slightest interest drawing across his eyebrows.

"… even Kol fell under her beauty. It was the briefest of fancies true, did not even last a day as I remember, but he did."

The memory is still fresh, maybe even more so now than it would have been a week previous. Elijah had been so enamored with her while observing that scene, so oblivious to just how minor that feeling was compared to the Love that would grow.

-*o0o*-

_Since he first heard her laugh at him through the leaves of the tree Elijah had met the lovely Elena on a few more occasions. He had learned that talking to her was easier than to anyone else he had ever spent any significant time with. She simply had the most unique outlook on their lives, one he had never considered before._

_She saw the good in the close contact they shared with their more powerful neighbors and not, as he himself had, only the danger of it. He had heard of the constant warring the people born in this land participated in of course, but Elena saw the wolves, although rabid once every full faced moon, as protection against this as well._

_And Elijah knew it to be true once he thought on it. Their modest village had never been attacked by outsider spears. Neither did they need to contest with many more numbers for the animals of the forest. She had insisted, there might have been enough to share with one other group, but they could have faced hunger, either when winter came or the smothering heat of the summer struck, if they'd had need to do so with more._

_And she also passionately described to him that however harsh the life was here, it must be more fortunate than the one facing the people of the land their parents fled for this one._

_So Elijah realized Elena was intelligent as well as beautiful and every coming sunrise he saw more of both, was unable to close his eyes to either despite the significant effort he spent in the attempt. He could not have helped but to admire this young woman._

_So here he was, walking towards the field where the wild horses grazed, knowing Elena would either join him there or was already waiting. His heart was pumping faster than he was used to. It was an intoxicating sensation._

_But just before he had the chance to exit the tree line he heard more than one voice and slowed in caution to listen._

"_But Elena, are you sure you do not want to go for a horse ride? It would be most entertaining, do you not agree? And you will have the rare pleasure to be by my side besides!"_

_The voice was familiar and it did not take but a moment for Elijah to identify its source, although he was sure that the smug inflection would have made him aware even without the blood tie between them._

_Kol seemed to have chosen the sweetheart of the week and to Elijah's surprising displeasure the girl in question was Elena. He need not have worried if the loud huff Elena let out to be heard by him was anything to go by._

"_These horses would throw you off their backs before you had the chance to even mount them."_

_Carefully watching his steps now, as not to alert the two people he moved closer and slowly crouched once they were in sight._

_Elena was standing stiffly with her hands across her chest and a displeased frown on her face. Kol on the other hand oozed carefree pleasure. His brother was enjoying the conversation he saw._

_Elijah… was not. Although he dared not yet care to explore the 'why' of it._

"_So come back home with me Siren. I'm more than willing to show you how quick and able to mount I can be."_

_Elijah's hands fisted the grass beneath him in irritation at the boast and he almost moved to interfere, had he not been slowly growing to know Elena he would have, but by now he knew that she preferred to deal with her problems personally whenever possible._

_Besides, Elijah knew that unlike his other younger siblings Kol dealt with rejection without the smallest of issues. If Elena proved to be too stubborn in her refusal for his company he would soon change his sights to the fair smith's daughter or a bright eyed friend's sister. But that would only hold true if Kol did not notice Elijah's presence, for what he thought of as humiliation was a different matter entirely._

_A matter, he knew, that would go a great deal more badly for Elena's honor, at least where the biased opinions of their village men and women were concerned. Despite how much Elijah loved all his family, he was not entirely blind to their shortcomings and Kol was not above a few careful lies if he thought himself slighted. But only if Kol came to be aware of Elijah's presence would he need worry about this._

_Momentarily he heard the hiss of pain Kol let out, his eyebrow raised in surprise as Elena grabbed his brother by the ear twisting, and amused he concluded she had this situation well within her able control in any occasion. His help would only interfere._

"_Now, Kol?" She sweetly asked not even blinking at Kol's awkwardly half bowing form. "Did you not have someplace else you should be?"_

_His brother glared up at Elena and grinned wickedly._

"_I did. I can see when I'm not welcome."_

_Finally letting go she stepped back a serene smile already crossing her face, carefully hiding a touch of triumph. Elijah observed more cautiously, this seemed too simple._

_But Kol was heading back towards the village and Elijah swiftly moved to stay out of his line of sight. Luckily his brother was not quite as skilled a hunter as Elijah or father and did not take notice._

_A few steps before he could leave entirely Kol halted. Elijah winced, Kol always liked the last word and unfortunately he had a particular knack for them, Rebekah tended to throw things shortly after this seemingly innocent look crossed Kol's face._

"_How is Elijah doing? I rarely see him anymore, if I did not know him better… I'd think he was sneaking off to meet some pretty maiden."_

-*o0o*-

Niklaus' lips twitch at his story, no doubt enjoying Kol's parting comment in a way Elijah will never appreciate, but otherwise they both remain silent.

Elijah does not doubt they are both immersing themselves in the better recollections left by his lovely Elena now and so fighting off the pain that rains upon them so ruthlessly from the latest one.

*o0O0o*

A/N2: Turns out there's still going to be one more chapter in this time before I jump across five hundred years. This chapter grew a bit longer than planned, so I cut it in half. On the bright side, I'm halfway through with the next one already, so hopefully the window between updates won't be this long.

Be a dear! Review!


	4. Grieving Autumn: Promising Cold

Disclaimer: None of the characters in this fic are mine. I didn't create them and I'm not getting money for playing with them. I do however deal in Review Currency, so…

A/N: Ready your handkerchiefs readers, this one might hurt.

*o0O0o*

*Harshness of the Seasons*

*Grieving Autumn: Promising Cold*

*o0O0o*

Elena lies peacefully as if in slumber, like she's dropped from exhaustion but at any moment she'll move to seek out the heat from Elijah's body and once she finds it smile. Cleaned of blood and wrapped in leather and fur, with her hair washed and braided by his inexperienced fingers… _she looks asleep._

And if he keeps his eyes on just her face, if he ignores the chest that should be rising in sync with her breath _- but isn't_ - and the paleness to her ever healthy sun kissed skin, he could almost fool himself into believing he might wake her with a throaty whisper by her ear. But his eyes miss nothing and so the only comfort is the mantra of Ayanna's promise chanting to an invisible rhythm within his head.

The child Elijah carefully holds pressed against his chest and over his rushing heartbeat moves lazily, all the while his son softly coos his content in that sweet as a singing bird's voice. He bites his tongue hard enough to taste blood, hides the building yells he wishes he could just release into the night continuing without end until his throat bleeds as well, but he _will not_ frighten Godric, especially not now… not in these last moments.

"She looks like a dream, your mother! Don't you agree? She has the most beautiful smile, I wish you could remember it when you grow, it's somehow pleased and loving and never more so than when she directs it at us."

He stops, just breathes and presses the knuckles of his free hand into the point between eyebrows until his eyesight blackens and the painful memories blur. When he finally feels ready to continue without choking he trails at the steps of his last thought as thought the pause never existed.

"And she fights like a bear for her cubs when those she cares for are threatened, or if she deems it just I suppose. I wish that when you reach boyhood I could tell you the story of the time a wolf girl without her parents wondered into our village. She was threatened by a man twice her height raising his hand to strike. But Elena with nothing except her wits stepped between them with a fury as I've rarely seen since thundering in her gaze. The man has not looked her in the eye after then."

Elijah moves his stinging eyes away from Elena's stone still face to observe their son instead. Godric is sleepily grinning up at him, oblivious to the meaning of his father's words, but soothed by the voice that carries them none the less. He envies that innocence.

He wishes he could be unaware of Elena's stillness and ignorant of the person at his back, unknowing of the woman who waits patiently and gives him his moment of privacy for a farewell.

Closing his eyes to ward off the pain carried by the unstoppably flowing river of time Elijah leans forward to kiss his wife's brow, their boy presses between them like another connection they shared, among the innumerable different ones, a symbol of the most significant proof their intertwined hearts have created. Her skin feels cold across his lips, there is no hint of the familiar spark he doesn't realize he expects and he is not overwhelmed by the warm honeyed scent he had gotten to know so well. Instead, despite the water he cleansed her with and the flowers he pinned in her hair, she smells like dried blood and a burned grave.

Godric squirms in protest at his uncomfortable position between two bodies - one deadly, one dead - and Elijah relents stepping away.

"Your mother would have always stayed by you if she could. Soothed you. Sang to you. Loved you. And I've no doubt in her dreams she always will." His son's brown eyes are like a reflection of his wife's and while looking into them Elijah wills them to somehow, someday relay understanding. "So will I."

He promises yet again.

_*-o0o-*_

_Her skin was pale and clammy, her hair stuck to her skin drenched in sweat, she was breathing laboriously in exhaustion and yet he had never seen her more beautiful. Not even during their wedding vows had she looked this radiant._

_And all of it because of the nursing babe whose age he could still count in moments._

_She was humming under her breath with a tender smile and yet her eyes seemed sad, his chest constricted at this small cruelty even on a day this magnificent. He very well imagined what she might feel missing from the occasion. And his thoughts were proven right with her quiet confession._

"_I don't remember the words that go along with the melody anymore. I listened to this lullaby every night when I was little and I can't remember how it went."_

_Elijah did not answer, he knew no words that could ease this pain, but he sat by her side placing his left hand around her, carefully moved her to rest against him and hesitantly reached with his right one for his newborn son's head._

"_I wish they could have met him. I wish they could have seen us together. I wish…no! Not today, I won't be sad today! Elijah? What name will we give him?"_

_He felt her head move under his chin as she looked up at him and his eyes flickered away from their son to connect with hers. There was a wistful star shining in them and he suddenly knew exactly the right words to ease his wife's pain._

"_Godric has a brave, good sound to it."_

_At the sound of her father's name Elena's smile bloomed colorful like a summer flower and she grabbed his chin for a kiss. It was a simple touch of lips and yet it felt like yet another gift of love._

_He held his new family in his hold and promised himself never to lose them. To always fight for them. To forever be there to ease the pain._

_*-o0o-*_

Compiling his will he finally turns away from the abyss of the spirit world towards the harsh eyes of the witch. Ayanna is standing by her gray mare, the horse is saddled for road with dried herbs and charms in the pack as well as food and blankets for the long roads ahead. She, like him and his family, is leaving now when their presence has created so much fear within their home.

They all know that staying would only bring more.

And Elijah studies her. Her unyielding presence is no more kind than it was when she met him in that burned circle, _- How can he hand his son to a woman that hates the man her sister's magic created? How can he know she will think any differently of Godric? -_ and for the barest moment he listens to those words in the back of his mind screaming at him in Elena's voice. But if he wants his son safe and alive he must follow this road, even if it leads him to his love's hatred once she wakes. Even if once Godric learns words he only ever mentions his father in bitter scorn.

He must relinquish his claim on the only good he still has left of Elena.

He must, because Rebekah, the girl who wished to learn healing from Esther, savaged the throat of a man they had played with as kids. They had hunted with Willhart on occasion, had drank mead with him, fought raging fires that moved towards fields of crops with him, protected their home from the occasional fury of nature by his side. And yet even as he had struggled and cried, in the time it took her to drink him dry he had been nothing but a meal to her. No matter how much she sobbed in the arms of her brothers' of it later, there was no reigniting that life.

'_Neither that one… nor Esther's.'_

His mother had placed that same hunger in all of them and had paid for it. At first a whisper at the edge of their mind, it grew with every day, like flames it licked in their stomachs beseeching to consume.

Niklaus and Kol had been disappearing behind dark corners with a new maiden or a different man's wife to quench their appetite rather frequently. Elijah's only comfort was how all those women reappeared well enough, if a little pale, by the same brothers' satisfied looking sides. He care not guess if only blood was consumed.

And Elijah himself is no exception to the hunger. He _has _tried to control it, has tried smothering this weakness. But the savage thirst is there, always present, waiting for a nick in the shield of his control… and the grief only proved to have enhanced it. So Elijah had taken to hunting in the woods, miles out of the way of any man, but even that barely satisfies and he knows he will not be able to abstain of his friends and neighbors for long if he remains. The disgust at his urges does not seem to be an asset for despite its piercing claws he still seeks out the rushing beat of hearts with his too great hearing.

And as he listens to the small rapid sound coming from Godric's young chest he fears.

Imagines the fragility of his son's tiny bones and remembers the way he and his siblings pulled the old tree with its very roots from the ground. It had given way so easily, they had not summoned sweat and their hands had not bled, at least no longer than the time it took for a snowflake to melt on a bared palm.

'_What could I do to a child if I held him too fiercely?'_

The final reason, the one that decided they must leave had come with his brother's news of their mother's death. Elijah even now does not know if he wishes to weep from this loss or take satisfaction from it, does not know if he should forgive a dead woman or carry on the rage at her horrifying decision.

So as his family had readied to leave he entered the woods looking for another promise from the one person who _might_ still care enough for Godric's life. For this one no boons were asked of him and yet he still knows he has sacrificed… everything.

While he walks towards the woman he used to recognize an aunt his feet struggle as though treading knee deep water. Ayanna waits, looking on with her wise, angry eyes. Elijah drops his gaze first, but past the catch in his throat and while already silently promising never again to do so, he pleads one final time.

"Take him with you Ayanna! Raise him! Teach him the things I no longer will have a chance to! And tell him… tell him of Elena! Do not permit him to grow without knowing of his mother's strength."

Her hands bend under his to grasp at the weight of his son and he tightens his hold in response without thought. His heart screeches and thunders and he almost, almost backs away. But then within the landscape of his mind he sees Godric's eyes as dead as Elena's, his skin as cold as his mothers, his blood as dead as his fathers. He lets go.

_He lets go._

*o0O0o*

As he stands at the very edge of the trees, his back resting against a stump of one of the pines, he simply breathes. The air hurts as it travels down his throat, his chest swells with the smells of the rotting leaves and musty dirt and he almost vomits at the overwhelming odor.

He lets it out and that is almost worse, because there is nothing to distract him from his empty hands and no whisper of the paling scent of a young boy to catch in the web of his senses. He can no longer even hear his son in the distance. Ayanna has vanished into the twilight with all the life that had been left in him.

Now he finds himself feeling as alone as Elena must have all those years past.

_*-o0o-*_

_The day she had become someone Elijah considered to be important was five cycles of seasons before her death. Although it took four of those summers until she reached the significance of what she came to mean to him, he had known her before even then. But of course he knew almost everyone from the surrounding villages. No one wished to live too far from the Caves after all._

_But he'd only recognized her name and face then, had only met her a few times because of Finn's wife. On this day that changed._

_He had been hunting a stag through the trees of the surrounding forest since mid noon of that day and despite the hours that had gone by he was not yet ready to give up. Then Elijah noticed a small stream not too large a distance in front of him and decided to set up in wait, ready in the likely case that the animal was as thirsty as him._

_After hiding behind a fallen acorn and checking the direction of the wind he drew his bow and placed an arrow ready to fly, with his shoulder muscles tensing from strain he crouched low and stilled entirely._

_But the trees around him were silent and no animals came to drink._

_Then suddenly there came a loud rustling somewhere to the left of where his arrow was pointing and the sound of branches breaking, giving way for something that did not care if it alerted his presence to either prey or a stronger hunter. The only animals that behaved that way were bears for which he was not prepared for, so with carefully contained alarm he quickly changed his trajectory hoping he would not have need to face one._

_As practiced countless times he drew the string more tightly and slowed his breathing for its release, the next instance someone ran into his sight and he almost shot the arrow at its unintended target. But before his hand could do the familiar motion his mind speedily took notice of the form of the aimed at victim._

_The runner in question was doing so on two legs and had long, dark tresses of hair. It was a girl and by her height he'd have to place her as a child not much older than Rebekah's thirteen years._

_Swallowing back the bile of that realization he jumped to his feet to catch the fleeing girl. He could hear her sobbing as he shortened the distance and was momentarily surprised at not having heard the cries before._

_She was just within arms reach when she finally noticed him and screamed. His sudden appearance must have distracted as well as frightened her, for she immediately tripped, dropping on her knees to the ground with an audible grunt and then laid still._

_Elijah finally had enough time to really notice her distraught appearance. Her hair was falling in every direction, leaves and small branches caught within them and singed on one side. It's the last part that really captured his notice and led him to become aware of the other signs, like the soot on her face and arms, the reddened skin of her right hand and the smoking parts of her dress._

_She was running from a fire._

_His eyes followed the direction she came from and tried remembering what lay behind the slight hill from which the smoke he only now saw was drifting away._

_And suddenly he recognized the young sister of the woman Finn took for a wife. This then reminded him of the house built within the forest some distance from the rest of the village… right about where his eye was resting._

_He knelt down and rolled the girl on her back. Her breathing was rapid and shallow and a little cough took what was left of it. But she grabbed his hand, clenching it so hard it was almost painful and opened her mouth as if to speak._

_He leaned forward to hear better and finally looked into her eyes. They were wide and half glazed over, but it did not take away from their desperate strength._

"_Save them! Please, save them!"_

_*-o0o-*_

While the world begins to come into focus once more, thankfully distracting him from yet another memory, he hears a voice at his back. It is almost as sad as his own would be if he could manage to release even a single word.

And he knows that voice. He has held its owner as she wept at loss, since the time she learned how he has listened to the sound of it as she used it to laugh. There is no light in Rebekah's voice now however, she sounds tired and coarse as if she has screamed herself raw the way Elijah has not permitted himself to.

"I am sorry she turned her back on you, I will never do that!"

He knows to whom it is she is now speaking with of course. The brother they learned is only half theirs, the brother who Elijah has given promise to contain. More importantly he is the brother who is as much his family as Finn and Rebekah and Kol.

Instead of alone in the dark continuing to mourn those he has already lost he joins the siblings conversing by the grave of their mother. There is no way for them to repair his heart of course, there is nothing they might say or do that would make Elena's death or leaving Godric acceptable, but he still has the duty to look after them. He will protect them the way he failed to guard the two people he loved so much.

"Nor will I!"

Rebekah looks towards him and Elijah can't help to feel gladdened at the relief in her eyes. At least _this_ he can still do successfully.

His sister was always the one he worried for most. He sees how freely she loves and so fears for the days when that strength will betray her, he is determined to push that event further away into the mists of future.

"We stick together as one!" She proclaims in certainty with her eyes shining fiercely and her voice holding no doubt. She promises with so much belief and determination that Elijah suddenly, proudly sees the woman behind his sister. "Always and forever."

His hands clasp those of his siblings and he echoes Rebekah's words.

He will always look after the family he has left. He will forever search for a way to wake his wife. He will never abandon the hope that one day, someday Elijah will have a chance to embrace Elena and Godric again. Even if it takes him fifty winters to do so, he will not give up. His heart belongs to them all.

'_Always and Forever.'_

*o0O0o*

A/N2: So? How was it? Did it make your chest constrict? Because I was aiming for that, I hope it lived up to that goal of mine. And how did you like Elijah's last promise? Was it cruel of me? To be fair as far as I see it Elijah doesn't really have the information to guess that he won't age, I mean werewolves age, why would he think his family's any different?

Anyway, next time you see an update you can be expecting five hundred years to have gone past. Elijah will act more like the ruthless guy we all know and adore, but he'll still have the goal to get Elena back, which... I admit might make him occasionally even more ruthless ;)


End file.
